From every part of the pit came the continued rasping of dry, cold bodies looping over the rock floor. Like the far-off rustling of leaves, it was. The rustling of leaves in pitchy blackness! And in the center of the deadly circle, he held himself as quiet as the rock against which he leaned.
The strain was too much for any
human will. With the cobras all
about him, and the weight of one actually
resting against his leg—he began to
break! An instant more, and though he
should be bitten a score of times for it—he
would have to move. All over his
body his muscles were twitching with
agonized desire for blind, senseless
action.
His hands, clenched in his lap, were touched by something cold and heavy that crawled over them and came to coiled rest on his waist. . . .
The thread of control was snapped. Screaming, he lashed out with his fists, battering the rock floor with his bare hands as far as he could reach. He could feel a dozen needle points sunk into his flesh. . . .
Without a sound he fell forward on his face and lay still.
It was so that Achmed and the vacationing cattle-man—sent out by Dan-cherman to bring him back quietly and avoid a scandal—found him in the red light of daybreak.
Noosing the tow-rope of the car around one of the stiffened arms, they raised the body of Weiss from the pit. As they laid it out on the ground, both drew back with a shudder from the staring, twisted face, and Achmcd quickly covered it with his burnoose.
"It must be someone else.'" marveled the cattle-man. "Weiss didn't have white hair."
"It is Weiss," said Achmed. "But—changed!"
"How could he have died—like that? Cobra bite?"
"No. As you see, his face—though not pretty—is unblackened by the poison. Besides, in the memory of man, there have been no cobras around here."
"But the one Dancherman threw out of his bed"
"Brought up from far, far south by the charmer," said Achmed. "There are no cobras in this land, my friend. Unless"—he shrugged—"unless there are those most powerful ones of the imagination. . . ."
"Nonsense!" protested the rancher. "It takes more than imagination to kill a full-grown man!"
Incredulous, he searched minutely for signs of cobra bite. The body was absolutely unmarked!
"You see!" said Achmed. "It was too dark, and he was too much alone with the memory of what he had done. . . ."
Again he shrugged, and he raised his eyes from the huddled figure toward the throneroom of Allah.
Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
